By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
Uyo (INVESTADVOCATE)-The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Tuesday reported a 7.9 percent (7.9%) rise in total inward direct investment from $24.1 trillion in 2011 to $26.0 trillion in 2012.
According to a Coordinated Direct Investment Survey (CDIS), the Fund’s worldwide survey of bilateral direct investment positions, the $26 trillion makes up 26 percent (26%) of total inward direct investment in 2012 was concentrated in 10 economies with the largest inward direct investment.
While 78% of the total outward direct investment is $26.6 trillion and was originated from the 10 economies with the largest outward direct investment.
The 2012 survey includes data from 88 economies, two more than in the 2011 preliminary results. New CDIS participants are Burkina Faso and Tanzania and the IMF says it will post revised and more comprehensive data in June 2014.
The CDIS database—available publicly at http://cdis.imf.org and through the IMF e-library—presents detailed data on “inward” direct investment (i.e., direct investment positions with a nonresident foreign direct investor) cross-classified by economy of investor, and data on “outward” direct investment (i.e., direct investment positions abroad by a resident foreign direct investor) cross-classified by economy of investment. All participants in the CDIS provided data on inward direct investment and most participants (more than two-thirds) also provided data on outward direct investment.
The IMF said the CDIS database contains breakdowns of direct investment positions including, in most instances, separate data on net equity and net debt positions, as well as tables that present “mirror” data, in which data from the reporting economy are shown side-by-side with the data obtained from all other counterpart reporting economies. Mirror data may be compared to an economy’s own estimates vis-à-vis the counterpart. Mirror data are useful in highlighting data gaps or errors, and therefore where follow-up efforts may prove beneficial. The CDIS website also allows users access to metadata reports (which provide information on the characteristics of the data reported in the CDIS by a given country, including its data coverage and compilation methodology).
